Hello out there! Time once again for a quick excursion outside the music world and into the realm of the written word.
That’s right, we’re doing another book report…
Hey folks, what’s up? It’s been a little while since we’ve done this! Around four months since the last time I wrote about anything on this website, and almost four YEARS since I shared a book recommendation with you all.
If you’re thinking that this is chiefly a place to talk about music, you are correct. Usually my purpose here is to let you know about something I’ve heard that I thought was worth sharing. And yeah, I do have a to-do list of hundreds of albums dating back nearly the entire lifetime of this site — not to mention the dozens of new emails coming in every single day.
But sometimes it’s tough to fit in some quality listening time throughout the day, especially critical listening and then writing about what I’m listening to. There are conference call meetings at work, tv shows and movies to watch after work, just so many different things vying for attention…
Ok, yeah, you’ve caught me. These are all just lame excuses. The truth is, a few months back my company hooked us all up with free access to an online learning service, and I have become absolutely addicted. So far, I think I’ve watched about 400 hours worth of productivity and time management videos. Things haven’t really improved much yet, but I’ll keep watching them until I find one that helps!
But having said that, one of my goals for myself in 2021 has been to spend more time reading. And while much of that has been some pretty weighty material — about scientific studies and social theories and various other subjects relevant to my interests — occasionally it’s also nice to break things up with some less-serious stuff…
Hey there, ladies and gentlemen of the internet. It’s been some time since we’ve done a proper review around here, as you may have noticed. Things should be getting back to normal soon, but the simple reason is that there just hasn’t been much time available for listening to anything lately! With an abnormal amount of turnover at work over the past couple of months, I’ve found myself spending my days training quite a few temp employees, which has drastically cut into time I’d normally spend tuning out the world with my headphones blasting. A lot of the actual writing is done on the bus or in small bits here and there as I have spare time, but it’s virtually impossible to listen to anything on the bus because it’s so noisy I can barely make out anything — even with my Walkman turned up dangerously high.
Bus rides do afford me some quality time for keeping up with email though, or just for reading. So I find myself doing a lot of the latter, either via analog paper copies borrowed from the local library or digital books downloaded onto my phone. And that’s why, in a space where you’d normally come for music news, today I’m doing a book report like I’m back in middle school or something. Hopefully you all will enjoy this diversionary change-of-pace. Feel free to let me know in the comments. And be sure to stop back for more music-related stuff soon!
Valley of Steel 